K, time for a rant post.Follow

I sincerely hope you are being sarcastic, Soljourner.

Why would he be sarcastic? We are a support class, that's pretty much how we were designed!

Not a problem. You want proof of what a shaman can do? Watch this vid. Its long, the musics great.

http://files.filefront.com/ISKwmv/;7993240;/fileinfo.html


Thats proof that skill beats all.

Also notice that hes wearing pre bc gear as well fighting up to 3 others at the same time.

Edited, Jan 22nd 2008 6:29pm by Soljourner

I hate it when I have to accept the facts...

Elemental Shaman pvp strategy:
Step 1- hide
Step 2- spam lightning bolt and chain lightning
Step 3- get found
Step 4- Frost Shock
Step 5- blow elemental mastery and Natures swift
Step 6- chain lightning
Step 7- Run
Step 8- pray
Step 9- die
Step 10- rez, rinse, and repeat

Its easy/instinct, and kinda sucks but it is what we have been reduced to.

Pretty much up ***** creek without a paddle. As long as people are playing the shaman, blizz doesn't care. Since we are the lowest population class in the game, the proportion of shamans who complain when we receive a nerf is way lower than other classes like rogue or warrior.

Also, as many have pointed out, we're not essential for endgame content. How many times have you seen a raid be canceled because no tanks showed up? Or no priests. Ok, lets cancel the raid because we don't have a shaman? Not bloody likely...Sure we have some nifty utility buffs, but overall you can definately get by without us. Try getting by without DPS, a main tank or a healer, not going to happen.

Basically some argue we're a utility class, a support class, QQ and get over it! Ok, well if we're destined to be utility/support fine, at least make us have something unique that makes us near essential or at least desired to have in groups other than second rate healer. Every other class with healing abilities has OPTIONS OTHER THAN HEALING FOR ENDGAME CONTENT! Druids can spec feral and tank, Priests can spec shadow and be a mana battery/dpser. Paladins can also spec Prot and tank. We have 1 dam viable spec, and given the choice between us and any other healing class we come in dead last.

In regards to CC, it would NOT be that hard at all to fix. many classes have talents that buff an ability to grant CC. So why not have a talent that buffs frostshock (2-3 points) to immobilize a target for the duration of the spell instead of just slowing it? Or you could add a stun effect to earthshock through talents. Very simple fixes if Blizz just used their freaking head for 2 seconds and gave shaman a little consideration.

Or fix the freaking totems. Make earthbind actually BIND so it immoblizes a target. you could throw an earthbind totem on a target as a debuff and immobilize them that way. So freaking simple really, forget all these complicated revamps of the class. Just a simple CC could revolutionize the class and make us useful again.

I'd just like to tell you that you're very, very wrong on at least this point.

1. It's one of only a few Snares not subject to diminishing returns.
2. It's the only ranged instant snare (to my knowledge) with a cooldown shorter than the duration. Not even Hunters, who are supposed to be the best kiters in the game, have this.
3. It's one of the only snares that also deals a hefty chunk of damage.

Sorry, Taurrus, I know you already fielded this one, but...


Ok. So? You tell me exactly what that accomplishes.


It also only has a 20 yard range without the arena gloves. Rogues can Sprint to you through it easily, Warriors can Intercept, Paladins can Cleanse or BoF it off, Druids can shift out of it and/or Feral Charge you. The only person you can actually use Frost Shock to kite is an Enhancement Shaman. And Enhancement Shaman can't even catch an Elemental or Resto Shaman with it. It's that bad.

Concussive Shot is one of the earliest skills Hunters learn. L2P a Huntard?


It deals moderate damage and is extremely mana-inefficient.

Yeah, we seem to be wanted in arenas though. Surpisingly I've been having a good day in 2v2. Straight wins and no losses. But then, I have a great lock player too. 5v5, shamans are always wanted for that team buff they can do. But that doesn't excuse our lack of pvp survivability and end game raids.

Let me just say, If you want CC/Stuns/Defense REROLL!

Your playing the wrong game if you want the whole pie, go get another game where you can level every single skill if you want it.

I love the fact that I dont have cc/stuns, makes the game a little more challenging, if you have ever played a character for example a hunter, and you basically have everything. Stuns(concussion shot)/CC(frost trap)/Defense(Pets and I find Feign Death basically as a defense tactic). You will see how boring the game gets quickly. You basically only die when your cool down for FD is up.

Totems are OP when they are up, If you dont use them or if they get killed, then tough, drop them again. You will find the game is much easier if you use every skill available to you, dont dwell on your weaknesses, embrace what makes your class superior in one shape or form.

every warrior i know fears an elemental shammy more than any kind of warlock.

no healer is harder to kill for a warrior than a geared resto shammy, simply because nature's guardian will out-heal or equal non-crit white attacks from even top-geared warriors. add earth shield into the mix and its, at best, a stalemate.

shaman are pretty damn good in pvp. they require support to be their most effective, but when supported, are beastly in every sense of the word. even enhancement does better than most other "off-spec" pvp specs, assuming the shaman has an idea of how to spec, play, and gear it of course.

and warriors are completely useless unless they have dedicated support.

your point? a single mage can completely shut a warrior down unless said warrior is supported. theres nothing the warrior can do. no escape mechanisms, nothing. just like if a war gets on a lock, that war is going to stay there no matter what the lock does, even with death coil.

its a team game. purge the crap out of that mage for me and keep him from polying us with ES and grounding and ill kill him so quick youll hardly have time to worry about the rogue on you.

rogues positively HATE poison cleansing totem. dropping that with an EB totem (or smacking the rogue with frost shock) then using cure poison on yourself (if needed) is a great way to get distance on a rogue and maybe force a deadly throw.

of course, the rogues teammate(s) might just kill the totems for him (and they should) but then again, your teammates could CC the rogue.



i beg to differ. no resto or elemental shaman should lose to a warrior. restos wittle people down with flame shock and searing totem while keeping HP high, whereas elementals just plain nuke the crap out of people. applied to warriors, a resto heals early and heals often with downranked heals to conserve mana.

an elemental just nukes. doesnt matter if he gets interrupted, because even if the warrior chains interrupts for as long as he can the shammy will not have died before the warrior is out of options. in fact, the best way to beat elementals is not to use a 2h, but to bring out the sword and board, since it restricts them by forcing them to watch for spell reflect. using zerker stance vs an elemental shammy is a great way to help him gain some new crit records thanks to the zerker stance damage penalty.



ya. thats kinda what heal-specced classes do. win by attrition. been that way since....retail? ya. retail.



again, elementals just nuke. if the warrior is 2hing it, hes in zerker stance for the pummel interrupt, meaning any and all damage done by the elemental is being increased by 10%. to have a chance at winning, the warrior has to go 1h+shield for spell reflect, because an elemental who wants to kill something quickly can do so very easily. thus the warrior cant risk the extra damage intake from zerker stance, and needs the defensive power offered by spell reflect, if only to make the shaman more cautious when casting.

in short, if an elemental shaman is losing to any kind of warrior, that shaman is either outgeared, afk or incompetent. elemental shaman are essentially nukers on par with mages in terms of burst damage, but with more armor and the ability to heal.

enhancement? theyll lose more often than not, and rightly so; theres no way in hell a melee-specced hybrid should beat one of the two pure melee classes unless the hybrid outgears the pure or the pure is afk and/or incompetent.



shaman are more like druids in the sense that the position they take in the r/p/s perspective depends on their spec. an elemental takes on the mage-like qualities with incredible nuking power while maintaining strong natural defenses (talented resistance to certain kinds of spell damage, mail+shield for physical mitigation). their sole school of magic puts them at something of a weakness against the pure casting classes (mage and lock), but the tradeoff is higher efficiency vs high armor targets (elem shaman are premier plate- and bear-killers).

an enhancement takes on the rogue or warrior-like qualities depending on weapon choice (2h or DW). one goes for more consistent, higher overall damage (DW) while the other opts for burst. even now at 70 there are times and places where a pvp geared shaman can destroy pvp geared clothies in a matter of seconds (like, <10 seconds, not 120), assuming things go their way. their ability to toss out extreme damage randomly is both a blessing and curse, as they have no control over it, but their opponents have no idea when the damage is going to come either. they gain this melee burst power at the cost of their casting and healing potential, and the sacrifice of a shield and reliance on their weapon puts them at a disadvantage when faced against pure melee (with the somewhat exception of feral druids, which is kind of a wash).

finally, a resto opts for the support and outlasting side of shaman. they have the second highest armor class of a healer (and unlike druids, they dont need to shed their armor in order to heal), and win fights one of two ways; by outlasting their opponent in personal combat, or by supporting their allies to victory. the only sure fire way to kill a resto shammy quickly is to eliminate their mana, or overwhelm them with numbers. but overwhelming pretty much anyone with numbers will bring a kill, so thats not so much an effective anti-class strat as it is an overarching tactic.



shamans have great utility, some of the best in game. totems are, as noted, extremely powerful. the fact that they can render bonuses while being out of direct LoS is a huge advantage in many situations, as clever totem placement can force a target to disengage for several seconds while seeking out and destroying the totems. i dont know how many times ive lost melee range on someone thanks to a well placed EB totem, or the amount of dps ive lost because i had to run behind a pillar to take out a tremor or grounding totem.

and for the record, ive seen dps-focused 3's teams with elemental shaman in them that get pretty high (1900+) as well as resto shaman in 2's breaking the 1900 barrier.



pretty much any class suffers from that under focus fire. with the exception of mages (ice block) and paladins (bubble) any class thats under heavy fire goes down fast, and no class has the kind of controlled burst damage an elem shammy has (making them key tools in any burst-down situation).

as far as lockdown goes, youre in the same boat as paladins are, altho shaman can at least use frost shock to snare should the need present itself.

now that ive said all that, i feel the need to tell everyone that i dont think shaman are perfect. shaman and paladins could use a few tweaks to address their issues, specifically involving lockdowns and how they can really cripple each class. but the rest of the complaints mentioned by many shaman are, in my opinion, mostly bull. shaman happens to be a class that relies on group support in order to realize their full potential, and given that this is a game whos pvp is ostensibly balanced around group engagements, i dont see a problem with that. in fact, id wager that making more classes like that would be a good thing for pvp. whether or not that will happen i cant say.

essentially, shaman dont have it that bad. there are problems, but every class has problems. its not the "doom and gloom" type of thing many people seem to think it is.

I loled. It is true. In theory, if so and so class does ______, we can drop _____ totem to counter. However, considering reaction time, and that pvp fights are generally over in less than 20 seconds, Quor needs to take that into consideration, far too many of our abilities are REACTIVE to what another class does. If Totems weren't on GCD, perhaps I would have time to drop them so they would help in PvP, but as it stands, I usually don't have time to drop any more than 1. Pretty much every other class can fare well in PvP (solo) depending on spec against some classes. Shamans can't fare well in solo PvP against any class any more...

Just an example, Quor pointed out rogues hate poison cleansing totem. Okay, in theory, this is all good, we drop the appropriate totem and all is well...hardly. What we need is some form of CC so I have a chance to get out of LOCKDOWN, STUNLOCK to even drop my totem and get a little distance to drop other defensive totems.

Shamans need a group to PvP? So, while every other class can farm PvP marks SOLO to some degree, we will have to find a group in order to be somewhat effective? That's BS, we're already losing out on the gear battle due to raid preferences favouring the other 3 healers in the game.

I can say this, after grinding on my Shaman for a while, enhance is passable now for PvE, it is possible to grind at a decent rate with water shield, while DW two fast weapons and using SR to keep your mana up. However, this is totally useless for PvP. In fact, PvP wise, I think an enhancement shaman is probably the worst spec in the game. No CC, no way to get out of stun, no way to pop a heal unmolested, not enough damage output to take out a melee mob, not enough closing/snare spells to keep a caster mob stationary enough to hit.


Edited, Jan 26th 2008 5:55pm by Taurrus